Weapons Effect

The weapons effect is a controversial finding in social psychology describing the mere presence of a weapon, or even a picture of one, leading to more aggressive behavior in humans, particularly when those humans are already aroused. It was first described by Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony LePage in 1967 in their paper Weapons as Aggression-Eliciting Stimuli, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, which reported an experiment at the University of Wisconsin testing the hypothesis that stimuli commonly associated with aggression, such as weapons, can elicit more aggressive responses from people already ready to act aggressively. Several researchers have since criticized the concept, questioning the original findings because later studies have been less successful at replicating the effect and alternative explanations, such as an individual's own familiarity with the weapons present, have been proposed. As work on the weapons effect progressed, researchers also demonstrated a related weapons priming effect, in which even weapon-related words lead to more aggressive behavior. The weapons effect is distinct from the separate social-psychology finding known as weapon focus.